The TAXI organization, billed as the largest, independent, online A&R company in the world, offers its members free admission to their annual Road Rally held in Los Angeles each November. The Road Rally taught in one weekend, most of the lessons I’ve learned over the last 15 years from my alma mater, the U of HK (the University of Hard Knocks) and then some. Michael Laskow, TAXI CEO, promised “A life changing experience in the marketing for the event, and he delivered a paradigm shift like no other. Below is a bullet point highlight list from the event. If you can’t step up your career after attending a Road Rally, you didn’t pay attention, spent too much time at the bar, or on the roof of the hotel (but that’s a topic for another day). View the Road Rally details at: http://www.taxi.com/transmitter/1310/the-TAXI-road-rally-2013.html
TAXI Road Rally Highlights
- Keynote Speaker – Geoff Emerick (Recording engineer for the Beatles) http://www.beatlesbible.com/people/geoff-emerick/
- One- on-One mentoring sessions with Brett Anderson (Donnas lead singer), Prescott Niles (the Knack bassist) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Donnas and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Niles
- Melody Writing Class with Jason Blume (Grammy nominated songwriter with 50,000,000 album sales) http://www.jasonblume.com/
- Demo to Done Class with Rob Chiarelli (Grammy award winning producer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Chiarelli
- Music Marketing Classes with Debra Russell (Career Coach), Bobby Borg (former Warrant Drummer/Author/Professor) http://artists-edge.com/ and http://www.bobbyborg.com/
- Recording Classes with Fett (Nashville engineer and author), Ronan Chris Murphy (Worldwide producer and engineer) - http://azaleamusic.com/ and www.recordingbootcamp.com
- Live song reviews by film and television music supervisors
- Multiple, nightly open mics
- Random jam sessions in the hallways and around the bar
- Abundant networking opportunities
I have a collection of highly cherished backstage lanyards from performances opening for acts like the Offspring, the Beach Boys, the BoDeans and performances at festivals like the World’s Largest Music Festival, “Summerfest”. The TAXI Road Rally lanyard will join this collection as one of my top music career experiences. Look for interviews from some of the experts listed above in the coming year.
Never give up! – Kenny Maciejewski